Roger Williams (c. 1603 – 1683) founded the colony of Providence Plantation to provide a refuge for religious minorities. An early proponent of religious freedom, Williams was deeply dedicated to maintaining a firm separation of state and church. A Puritan minister, he argued against any public display of religion by any sect, cult, or group, and was especially found distasteful the Church of England (Anglican) and its sister-in-faith, the Roman Catholic cult.

Roger Williams was the first to use the phrase “wall of separation”. It was later incorporated into a letter to the Danbury Baptist church in Connecticut to define the relationship of state and church. Both Williams and Jefferson warned that when religious fanatics within the Christian communities rose to defend their own sectarianism no one was safe.

Roger Williams "The Bloudy Tenent" (on injustice; original in private collection of this author)

His primary tract, a robust denunciation of the King of England and the growing authoritarianism of religion in the colonies led to his being summoned before the General Court of Boston to hear charges of unorthodoxy levied against him. The clergy in the seventeenth century were especially determined to maintain an Old Testament theocracy where women were to remain silent, children seen but not heard, slavery was the design of their god who used the color black to mark the sins of the mythological Ham in the tale of Noah and his ark, and to make certain that education was focused only on a literal reading of the English Bible. While some ministers knew Greek and a few were competent in Hebrew, the scriptures used were called out to demand allegiance and obedience to the pastors of congregations, and women were to sit silently in obedience to their men–a continuation of the misogyny of Martin Luther and the crippling of theology by various Fathers of the Church from the fourth century forward. Denouncing the High Church authorities of the Anglican communion as men in trappings, Williams was ordered to stand trial in Boston–a trial that had every trapping of the Spanish Inquisition.

List of Crimes for which a person could be executed in Massachusetts Bay Colony (1641; original in this author's private library)

Following a travesty of justice his tract was publicly burned as was the fate of most dissenters and those who defended the right of people to believe or not believe as their “spirit” dictated. The burning of books, tracts, and tomes was not new to Christianity in the New World.

It began with the very foundation of the Christian Church by the Emperor Constantine the Great (the First) when he ordered the writings of Arius to be burned at his Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, and has continued through every

epoch and in every church in every land to the present where no scripture of any kind for any theology has been safe.

Map of Rhode Island (USA)

Today, the colony of Providence has become the theocracy of Rhode Island. Rhode Island is a state where no one is free to dissent, and where the rulings of a judge against the public display of any religious ideas are mocked and the plaintiffs and judge threatened.

The messenger who has followed in the footsteps of Roger Williams called for her right to disbelieve and found the Christian mind-control of her school to be rightfully unconstitutional has been accused of everything from being the mythological anti-Christ to being the subject of vile epitaphs and notes on Facebook and Twitter—this done by “saved” Roman Catholics and Protestants, although she did score the help of one Protestant minister, and later support from some Protestant ministers who initially hesitated to act.

Cranston High School West (RI)

The Roman Catholic cult that controls Rhode Island and has infested the town of Cranston, continues to sharpen its hatred equal to any blustering of the Spanish Inquisition and the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada, a one-time Jew, turned mass murderer. Torquemada issued the same threats of rape, assault, and assassination as has the gaggle of goons who metaphorically goose-step through the halls of Cranston High School West in Rhode Island.

Prussian coat-of-arms (1933)

The hatred in Cranston High School West is so loud that one can nearly hear the famous proclamation: Gott mit uns proudly publicly belched from 1940-1945 and emblazoned on the Wehrmacht belt buckle that had represented the Prussian coat of arms in 1933 (it actually was a late Roman Empire war cry: Nobiscum deus, which after the Christian church was founded by the emperor Constantine in 325 became a part of his self-created “catholic” [universal] church that he never attended nor accepted but created to silence dissent; Haldon, John (1999). Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World. London, UK : UCL Press, p. 24), exceeding Deus vult in 1095, following the blood-demanding raw rhetoric of one of the least holy and most evil of medieval popes: Urban II (Tyerman, Christopher (2006). God’s War: A New History of the Crusades. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, p. 65), the prototype for the sadistic and unsaintly Jeanmaría Escrivá and his nefarious Prelatura Sanctae Crucis et Operis Dei, whose maleficent organization has issued more hatred for women, the right of protest and individual choice than any other evil that has covered this planet.

Josemaría Escrivá and Opus Dei

The cult of Escrivá and his embrace of the dictatorships of Generals Francisco Franco in Spain (1939-1975) and Augusto Pinochet in Chile (1973-1990), were but the least disguised attacks on dissenters, that would come to fruition in Rhode Island in 2012 (Luis Carandell, Vida y milagros de Monseñor Escrivá de Balaguer, fundador del Opus Dei (Madrid: Editorial Deriva, 2nd ed., 1992), and von Balthasar, Hans Urs (1964), “Friedliche Fragen an das Opus Dei” (in German), Der Christliche Sonntag16: 117). The people of Cranston who oppose free speech and the First Amendment of the US Constitution are far worse than Escrivá who would whip his body until his bathroom was red with his blood, for they seek the blood of a young girl who had the courage to defend the US Constitution.

Jessica Ahlquist (photo by Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times)

The one who has brought out the worse in Christians in Rhode Island is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves the fictional character Harry Potter created by J K Rawlings and, like most young people, is addicted to the privacy-invading social-media Facebook. Her name is Jessica Ahlquist. In addition to being a student, an avid reader, and a Facebook devotee, the teenager is an outspoken atheist and has won the hatred of her heavily Roman Catholic city and its predatory priests having successfully sued the public school to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years.

Jessica Ahlquist in law office to discuss case

Federal Judge Ronald R. Lagueux ruled in January 2012 that the prayer’s presence at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional. Like many others in Rhode Island, he is Roman Catholic, but like John F. Kennedy, he would not be owned nor controlled by the Vatican and concluded that banner bearing the prayer violated the principle of government neutrality in religion. In part, the judges rulings were based on in part based on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and US Supreme Court Cases Lemon v. Kurtzman, Lynch v. Donnelly, and Lee v. Weisman.

Jessica Ahlquist enters federal court

In Lemon v. Kurtzman 403 U.S. 602 (1971), the Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania’s 1968 Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which allowed the state Superintendent of Public Instruction to reimburse nonpublic schools (most of which were Roman Catholic) for the salaries of teachers who taught secular material in the nonpublic schools, secular textbooks and secular instructional materials, violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and upheld a decision of the First Circuit that had struck down the Rhode Island Salary Supplement Act providing state funds to supplement salaries at nonpublic elementary schools by 15%. In Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984), while the Supreme Court upheld the right of communities to display sectarian holiday scenes (a crèche) and ruled that the crèche is a passive representation of religion and that there was “insufficient evidence to establish that the inclusion of the crèche is a purposeful or surreptitious effort to express some kind of subtle governmental advocacy of a particular religious” view. The Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, also stated that the Constitution “affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any.” There was dissent, however by four judges, who argued dissent argued “The effect on minority religious groups, as well as on those who may reject religion, is to convey the message that their views are not similarly worthy of public recognition nor entitled to public support. It was precisely this sort of chauvinism that the Establishment Clause was intended forever to prohibit.” In Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992), came to litigation when the principal of Nathan Bishop Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island, Robert E. Lee, invited a Jewish rabbi to deliver a prayer at the 1989 graduation ceremony. Again, in a 5-4 decision, resulted, with the majority voting against Nathan Bishop Middle School, with Justice Kennedy, the swing vote, writing for the majority noted that the non-sectarian nature of the prayer was no defense in light of the Establishment Clause: “Through these means, the principal directed and controlled the content of the prayers. Even if the only sanction for ignoring the instructions were that the rabbi would not be invited back, we think no religious representative who valued his or her continued reputation and effectiveness in the community would incur the State’s displeasure in this regard. It is a cornerstone principle of our Establishment Clause jurisprudence that it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government, and that is what the school officials attempted to do.” Rhode Island had become the exact reverse of Roger Williams original intent for establishing Rhode Island as a safe haven for the expression of all religious and non-religious people, where there would be, as he wrote, a wall separating church and state.

The judge’s understanding of the law was lost on the majority of what appears to many as miscreant Cranstonians where Roman Catholic churches have a stranglehold on rational thinking and hate is more common than are flowers in stores and gardens, when ruling for Jessica Ahlquist. In the weeks since the ruling, the repugnant residents crowded invidiously into school board meetings to demand an appeal to force the retention of the pestiferous poster.

Cranston High School West prayer banner

The prayer, eight feet tall, is papered onto the wall in the Cranston West auditorium, near the stage. It has hung there since 1963, when a seventh grader wrote it as a sort of moral guide and that year’s graduating class presented it as a gift. It was a year after a landmark Supreme Court ruling barring organized prayer in public schools.

The prayer begins: “Our Heavenly Father, grant us each day the desire to do our best, to grow mentally and morally as well as physically, to be kind and helpful.” It juggernauts goes on for a few more lines before concluding with “Amen.”

“Amen” is the most sectarian, offensive and repulsive of all the words in this pushed prayer. It appears only in six of the Old Testament/Hebrew bible (twice in the Torah for the Orthodox Jew) books where it (אָמֵן) translates as “so be it” (cf. Numbers 5:22; Deuteronomy 27:15-26; 1 Kings 1:36 repeated in its redaction 1 Chronicles 16:36; Nehemiah 5:13 and 8:6; Psalm 41:13, 72:19, 89:52, 106:48; and Jeremiah 28:6). For some later-day Hebrews it was the name of an angel (Isaiah 65:16: a “god of truth”). On the other hand “Amen” is found in twenty-three of the books of the Christian New Testament as ἀμήν, where it translates as “standfast” (cf. Matthew 6:13. 28:20; Luke 24:53; John 21:25—notice that it appears nowhere in the Gospel of Mark which was the first of the gospels to be written—and the Pauline texts written by colleges of writers: Romans 1:25, 9:5, 11:36, 15:33, 16:20, 24 and 27; 1 Corinthians 14:16 and 16:24; 2 Corinthians 1:20 and 13:14; Galatians 1:5 and 6:18; Ephesians 3:21 and 6:24; Philippians 4:20 and 23; Colossians 4:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:28; 2 Thessalonians 4:18 and 22; Titus [a spurious letter] 3:15; Philemon 25 (the text was not an original Pauline essay as it was written by Onesimus, an alleged servant of Paul who was illiterate; it is tantamount to claiming that the Koran was written by the illiterate camel driver Muhammad); Hebrews 13:21 and 25; 1 Peter 4:11, 5:11 and 14; 2 Peter 3:18; 1 John 5:21; 2 John 13; Jude (of dubious authorship) 25; and the horror tale that can be found in Hittite, Hyksos, Egyptian and other Canaanite sources, known in the Christian Bible as Revelation of Apocalypse 1:6, 7 and 18; 3:14; 5:14; 7:12 (where it is repeated twice(, 19:4; 22:20 and 21) and is a battle cry to suppress dissent and push a sectarian agenda. In the Arabic it is آمين‎ and reflects a resurgence of emphasis (“Verily” or “So be it”) and was an afterthought coming after the word Dua (دعاء “supplication” or “invocation” and comes from Muhammad’s conversations with Jews living in Mecca before he wandered the desert and received the Koran from Allah through his messenger Gabriel). It is a basic triconsonantal root word for most Semitic languages and people and is a derivative of the name of the Egyptian god Amun, dating before 1000 BCE (read: Bonwick, James (1956). Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought. Indian Hills, CO, USA, Falcon’s Wing Press. pp. 123-125; originally published in London, UK: K. Paul & Co., 1878) the Egyptian hieroglyphic language shows the deity’s name as

Egyptian alphabet (a, i, u were not considered vowels)

having only three letters: AMN, as vowels in the earliest days of the language

First use of "Amen" (Egypt: 1520 BCE) to summon the sun

did not exist. It shares the same root as the Hindu Aum. All the initial statements by Jesus begin with Amen—which has no parallel in Hebrew scripture and makes the banner a distinctly Christian document. This alone makes the prayer at Cranston sectarian singling out Christianity as a church as the New Testament Greek word for church is ekklesia (εκκλησία) that correctly translates as “a calling out” being a meeting or a gathering (an assembly or a congregation and is singular—the only time that plural is used (Acts 19:37) is a direct reference to heathen temples.

To claim that a church is a kuriakon or kyriakon refers to a building (εκκλησιών), not any people inside it, and was a reference to the goddess Circe to celebrate the return of the god sun (Apollo). Christianity was a religion invented by the Emperor Constantine as the only religious source to provide values and direction. It is definitely against the US Constitution and the framework of the founding Fathers as “Amen” is not found in the Constitution nor in any congressional papers or the writings of any founding Father nor in any recorded/written speech. It does not exist. That makes it and the banner offensive, demeaning, and badgering and belittling to Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Farsi, Jews, and people of other religions and no religion and shows total contempt of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the USA.

Prayer on T-shirt (photo by Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times)

Today the predacious prayer has become a coat-of-arms, a decoration for T-shirts being sold to students, faculty, and citizens to raise revenues to appeal the judge’s decision and restore theocracy of theological thugs and evangelical extremists over the public school system to forcibly enshrine Christianity as the only acceptable faith. To determine if the school would appeal the federal judge’s ruling, the school board held a public forum on the question. This assembly was held at the Western Hills Middle School.

Supporters of the prayer banner sang and clapped their support of the banner, while booing students who spoke out against it (Source WJAR CNN)

The meeting was neither cordial nor constructive, and it did not address the issues of education but, as reporters, noting the words of the federal judge who ruled against the banner, the Western Hills Middle School at times had the atmosphere of a religious service for Tuesday night’s meeting during which a crowd of more than 200 zealots sang hymns and took turns demanding the School Committee appeal a court ruling ordering the banner removed.

The meeting was distinctly, recognizably, and offensively a sectarian exercise that was clearly in defiance of the Establishment Clause, and while Americans have freedom of speech, no American has the right to force any religious idea on another person by turning the meeting into a revival meeting, hurling epitaphs at Jessica Ahlquist that compared her to a Christian Mephistopheles, and chided and derided others who defended the removal of the offensive Christian prayer. In a meeting that had a plurality of Roman Catholic apologists who blustered in the same way as the Coptic Christian monks under the sway of the Coptic Pope Theophilus in the fifth century, not only pulling the atheist librarian (Hypatia) from her chariot while they were busy burning “offensive” [Arian and secular] books, and tearing her skin from her back while she was still alive only to throw her into a burning holocaust fed by scrolls and other writings being incinerated to destroy evidence of opinions that went counter to state sanctioned religion, the denizen of deniers of human and civil rights voiced their support for a theocracy similar to the church-tie state between the Vatican and medieval Spain and Franco’s fascist Spain. Because of a fear that such unreasonable and un-American activity would break out, the meeting included police escorts for those who took an “un-Christian” attitude and wanted the rule of law and the US Constitution’s First Amendment upheld.

Tolerance and respect for the law was spat upon and shouted down by a resident of Cranston, Lisa French, who hurled dollar bills towards the dais (she was later arrested and escorted out for rushing the stage in response to another speaker’s opinion that the protesters were “ignorant” of the fiscal crisis in the city), loud cheers and some boos, the Cranston School Committee on Tuesday heard from a crowd of nearly 250 residents demanding they appeal a court ruling ordering the prayer banner at Cranston High School West come down. The rally (official a public meaning to discuss budget plans for the school) had spiraled further down and there was little difference between it and the rallies and book burning of Nazi Germany when even living professors were hurled into the flames as SS (Schutzstaffel: Protection Squad) raided schools and with student aid, the majority were Roman Catholic who were encouraged by their Roman Catholic priests and the Generalsynode who were the pastors of Lutheran, Calvinist and other Protestant churches merged into the Church of Germany and carried “offensive books” to the bonfires or irrational state-controlled religion.

Many wore signs, provided by Christopher Young. Young is a radical and mentally disturbed zealot (cp. Spilka, Bernard, Hood Jr., Ralph W., Hunsberger, Bruce, and Gorsuch, Richard (2003). The psychology of religion: An empirical approach (3rd Ed.). New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press) who sees anything not Christian or Roman Catholic to be the work of the devil and claims to be a member of St. Paul and St. Charles Roman Catholic Churches in Cranston. Young once ran for mayor of Cranston and is viewed as a perennial candidate for elected offices.

Chris Young Mayoral Candidate Ejected from Debate over Statue of the BVM

Young is a staunch Roman Catholic who believes that the rulings of the Pope carry greater weight than the laws of Congress or decisions of the US Supreme Court, who was once arrested for disorderly conduct for tossing an anti-abortion DVD boxed movie at US Representative Patrick Kennedy and screaming anti-abortion slogans in November 2009, while Kennedy was speaking at Brown University (Young was arrested, see video here) and announced he would not seek re-election; Young has described himself as the “servant of the Virgin Mary” (see the video where Young carries the statue of Mary to a mayoral debate, here; cf. Postman, Neil (1976). “Fanaticism”. Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk: How We Defeat Ourselves by the Way We Talk and What to Do About It. New York, NY: Delacrote Press. pp. 104–112: a fanatic sees any action that violates his or her concept of what is right as a violation of what he or she sees as normal and the will of a god or goddess, singular or plural; as Lloyd Steffen wrote in his book Holy War, Just War , “[Religious] fanaticism … invokes the idea of ultimacy, and its presence in religious life is undeniable” … “[Religious] fanatics are persons who attach to some object an ultimate valuation and then attend to that overvalued object with what is recognizable as a kind of religious devotion” such as the worship and protection of a “virgin” statue, the proclamation that any book is “the true and actual word of a god” and so forth; read: Steffen, Lloyd (2007). Holy War, Just War: Exploring the Moral Meaning of Religious Violence. Lanham, MD, USA: Rowman & Littlefield, p. 81) and “unequivocally Roman Catholic” as with his singing Revelation as seen in this video (denoting religious fanaticism that was excused by Jeanmaría Escrivá and the Polish pope who suffered from various physical and mental illnesses) where the Vatican is the last word for mortals and the Pope is the only mouthpiece of god, and repeats that in 2010, he attends St. Charles Roman Catholic Church on the corner of Cranston and Dexter Streets in Cranston. In my professional judgment, Young is a danger to himself and his community, and is quite capable of killing Jessica Ahlquist or any who dissent from his Opus Dei viewpoints and excessive Roman Catholicism). The signs that Young handed out screamed “APPEAL – or vote them out!”

The vast majority in attendance were there to call for an appeal and decry the court decision, though several speakers did urge the committee not to appeal and said it would be a lost cause, including Ahlquist herself, who was led in and out of the auditorium by an entourage of Cranston Police officers. Only one person was allowed to speak twice: Pastor Richard Lehe who claims he speaks directly for god (see video here).

Ein feste Burg (Luther's original signature and composition) 1529 ed.

Before the meeting started, the crowd broke out into song, at first by singing God Bless America and eventually drifting into Christian hymns, a type of group psychosis exhibiting a collective psychotic mood formation bordering on harbingering violence. Many lustful voices echoed through the room, with tears swelling, and damnation of Jessica interspersed between prayers, strangely similar to the marching Lutheran armies spilling carnage and bloodshed in their wake to confiscate Roman Catholic holdings during the Protestant Reformation (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott a paraphrase of Psalm 46, sung by all invading armies throughout northern Europe) with the Lutheran cult being forcibly established throughout Scandinavia in the same manner as Roman Catholicism forced itself on the Moors of Spain and the advanced civilizations of the Inkas in the Andes of South America: the cross was used as a war weapon. It was as if the god of Rhode Island could not protect himself but needed the physical support for him to enact vengeance upon the unfaithful.

Patrick McAssey, a 17-year-old student council president at Cranston public school, began the public comment by stating he believes the prayer is “not in fact a Christian prayer,” bur rather a “positive statement that reaches all walks of life.” McAssey said “Heavenly Father,” and “Amen,” which is how the prayer begins and ends, could relate to many religions, not just Christianity. That’s why he believes the banner should stay. The greatest problem with McAssey is that the young man selectively or unintentionally (or lacking refined education) either ignores history, has not been taught history truthfully, or transmogrifies history, for “Heavenly Father” goes back beyond 5000 BCE when it was a term for the Egyptian sky god: a cow, detailed inThe Book of the Heavenly (Celestial, Divine) Cow, Funerary text of Egypt’s New Kingdom, and we also find fairly complete versions of the book in the tombs of Seti I (KV17), Ramesses II (KV7) and Ramesses III (KV11); read Hornung, Erik (1999). Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, Cornell, NY, USA: Cornell University Press). I discuss the ancient Egyptian use of “Amen” (the name of another Egyptian god: Ἄμμων) in another place in this essay, but note here that it is a universal word, with Sanskrit foundation, and has nothing to do with a religious ejaculation nor payer before the advent of redacted records for the Emperor Constantine’s catholic [universal] church after 325 CE when all opposing books, especially by Arius and Gnostics, were burned publicly to silence dissent.

McAssey, like a wounded soldier fighting a lost cause that was created out of a lie, marshaled on in a psychological syndrome of self-invited persecution and paranoid ideation, declaring: “Despite all the unwanted attention brought to this school, we should appeal this case. If we’re going to go down, let’s go down fighting.” (Cp. Read, John, and Argyle, Nick (1999), “Hallucinations, Delusions, and Thought Disorder Among Adult Psychiatric Inpatients with a History of Child Abuse,” Psychiatric Services November 1, 1999, vol. 50, No. 11; ref. Goff, DC; Brotman, AW; Kindlon, D; et al. (1991). “The delusion of possession in chronically psychotic patients.” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease179:567-571, and Blackwood, Nigel J.; Howard, Robert J.; Bentall, Richard P.; and, Murray, Robin M. (2001). “Cognitive Neuropsychiatric Models of Persecutory Delusions,” American Journal of Psychiatry, Apr 2001; 158 (4); 527-539).

Cranston resident Lisa French, who from my research has no educational background nor license in law, declared the judge’s decision “an unconstitutional ruling” and warned the committee that a precedent is being set. She stated: “How should a small minority be able to decide what should stand and what should not stand? I don’t know what kind of math you’re using but when I went to school, two is greater than one.”

French reiterated a frequently made point during the meeting, that many believe since “separation of church and state” does not explicitly, word for word, appear in the constitution, which is correct. Her assertion, however, that there is no reason why the government can’t sponsor prayer and religion has been rejected repeatedly by all degrees of jurisprudence (e.g. Bradfield v. Roberts , 175 U.S. 291 (1899), Quick Bear v. Leupp , 210 U.S. 50 (1908), Schneider v. State of New Jersey , 308 U.S. 147 (1939), West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette , 319 U.S. 624 (1943), Everson v. Board of Education , 330 U.S. 1 (1947), Torcaso v. Watkins , 367 U.S. 488 (1961) that addresses the issue of a required belief system, Engel v. Vitale , 370 U.S. 421 (1962) that can directly apply to Cranston, RI, as it states that state officials may not compose an official state prayer and require that it be recited in the public schools the state, even if the prayer is denominationally neutral, Chamberlin v. Public Instruction Board , 377 U.S. 402 (1964), Wooley v. Maynard , 430 U.S. 705 (1977) that prohibits any government or agency from disseminating an ideological message by displaying it in a manner and for the express purpose that it be observed and read by the public, Stone v. Graham , 449 U.S. 39 (1980) rejecting that a Kentucky statue requiring the posting of a copy of the Ten Commandments, even purchased with private funds, is unconstitutional, Wallace v. Jaffree , 472 U.S. 38 (1985) that a one-minute of silence violates the Establishment clause of the First Amendment, Edwards v. Aguillard , 482 U.S. 578 (1987) that Louisiana’s “Creationism Act” violates the First Amendment since it lacks a clear secular purpose; etc.).

Following the collective psychosis in the auditorium (cp. an interview by Harry Nutt with Gertrud Hardtmann on Eine Bewegung, die keener mehr kontrollieren kamm in Tageszeitung No. 5766, February 19, 1919), French warned that the entire committee would be voted out if they didn’t choose to appeal. “If you don’t defend the banner, you will not be reelected,” French shouted. “Any of you!”

French demonstrated, effectively, illusions of grandeur and hysterical mob psychosis (cf. T. W. Adorno, “Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda.” In Vol. III of Psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences. Ed. Géza Roheim. New York: International Universities Press, 1951, pp. 408-433. Reprinted in Vol. VIII of Gesammelte Schriften. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1975). Any veneer that Christianity was a religion of peace or love was firmly erased and exposed the stagnant skeleton on which faith was drapped in Cranston having been cannibalized by hate honed from pulpits, priests and pastors, parents in homes and sidewalk evangelists.

Taylor Grenga, a junior at Cranston West, said she thought that although the banner contained “a good moral message,” that is not a reason to keep it because the school already has a school creed hanging in the auditorium. Grenga was booed by some members of the audience, which prompted Nero to scold the crowd for not setting a good example, he said. What the general attitude did was show not only mob psychosis, but borderline personality disorder among the opponents to Grenga’s arguments (cf. Goodman, Marianne; Hazlett, Erin A.; New, Antonia S.; Koenigsberg, Harold W.; and, Siever, Larry (2009). “Quieting the Affective Storm of Borderline Personality Disorder,” American Journal of Psychiatry May; 166(5); 522-528). Nero continued: “The last few days, we’ve seen attacks — some of them which we have no control over, which are on blog sites. And you wonder where everybody’s getting down on kids for saying these things but you folks who boo — you’re setting the example for these kids [sic]. We have not sent a good sample and you folks need to set a good example.”

(L-R) Secretary of State Mollis and Andrea Iannazzi

Even before the public comment period began, School Committee chairwoman Andrea Iannazzi warned the crowd that anyone speaking ill will of Ahlquist “clearly does not understand the intent of the banner and will be asked to leave”. Iannazi added that even if she doesn’t agree with Ahlquist, “we can all recognize her bravery for standing up for what she believes in.”

Some in the crowd couldn’t contain their frustration, including French, who screamed that she was being slandered when Kerri Kelleher spoke and refuted an assertion by a previous speaker — who identified herself as a Narragansett resident — that the district has a $133 million budget and could easily afford to continue the legal battle. Lisa French charged the stage, throwing a fistful of dollars toward the committee, screaming “Here’s your money!” Iannazzi ordered French to be escorted after the room by police.

Ahlquist, herself, addressed the committee and urged its members not to pursue an appeal. She noted that Judge Lagueux is a conservative Catholic and “and even he sees this is not to be in a public school.”

“This is not about religion,” Ahlquist said. “This is about the Constitution and it always has been. Religion does not have a place in public school and this country was not founded on the idea of Christianity and Christian principles. It was founded on the idea of religious freedom. If you want to defend the Constitution, you will remove the banner.”

Ahlquist was seconded by Ray Bosscia, a longtime Cranston resident who said he initially was in favor of keeping the banner, but after reading Lagueux’s decision, he has begun to think “he may be right.” Bosscia, unwilling to make a deeper commitment to the Constitution, said maybe an “Our heavenly father” and “amen” could be removed from the banner to keep it in place. That was a suggestion from the ACLU early on, but the committee rejected it. Bosscia noted: “If we had done that in the beginning, would we be here now?”

The committee did not take any immediate action on the banner issue at the meeting. School Committee Member Frank Lombardi said he appreciated everyone who showed interest in the issue and “think it provides for spirited debate.” The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, which takes direction from the Vatican and provides legal services to the school district, is reviewing the case, promising to let the committee know if an appeal is worth considering. That means no action will be taken anytime soon, Lombardi said.

Allan Fung first Asian-American mayor of Cranston elected 2008

Since the ruling, the prayer has been covered with a tarp. The school board deliberated for some time before deciding delay consideration on an appeal—an appeal that would drain off the last revenues the school had reserved for education: books, teachers, staff, and so forth. On January 13, 2012, the Mayor of the city, Allan Fung, was among those who disagreed with the decision to remove the banner, but noted the expense that the city would incur in an appeal.

Jessica continues to receive online threats from students, parents, priests, and others, despite the fact that Rhode Island has an anti-bullying law (Bullying/Harassment Statute 16-21-24 (2003) and 16-21-26; H7213 (2008) includes “electronic communications” in the definition of harassment, intimidation or bullying that is aimed at cyberbullying, a favorite form of tormenting others by psychopaths and schizophrenics. Statute 11-21-2 (1956) makes hazing, defined in detail in Statute §11-21-1(1909), a misdemeanor offense, punishable of up to a $500 fine and/or imprisonment from 30 days to one year) A similar, national statute was initiated by one-time

David Cicilline

Providence Rhode Island mayor who later ran for the US Congress seat vacated by Patrick Kennedy: Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI) who became the fourth openly gay member of Congress: (read here and here). Cicilline has been consistently vocal in his opposition to any form of bullying, and has declared his support for divergent views. What happened in Cranston was overwhelming,

The local police have escorted her at school as even teachers along with classmates have vowed to “punch her in the face”, commit rape, and assassinate the youth (read here) and the observations of her uncle who has kept a video log of school board meetings and comments made by citizens of Cranston. Jessica received many from her school. Here are a select sampling of hate messages sent to Jessica Ahlquist from classmates:

Unquestionably, AJ St. Angelo has serious mental problems, for his Tweets stand out among the others that rampaged across the airwaves. He is in need of psychiatric help. To discuss rape is one thing, but to threaten rape, even by an imaginary being is deranged. Rape is an element in the crime of murder and genocide–the rapist has one intent: that the person (female or male) is unable to reproduce and thereby cannot educate a new generation in what the rapist considers to be heresy, blasphemy, or irreligiosity. While AJ St. Angelo shows definite sadistic psychological imbalance, his protestations also indicate a suppressed libido that makes him feel sexually inadequate either to penis size or observed or feared inability to complete a normal sexual act (Rice, Marnie E.; Lalumiere, Martin L.; Quinsey, Vernon L. (2005). The Causes of Rape: Understanding Individual Differences in Male Propensity for Sexual Aggression (The Law and Public Policy.). American Psychological Association (APA) or impotence). St. Angelo’s introduction of Satan into his screed indicates that his ability to think rationally is impaired by religious imprisonment of his mind, that he has been taught that Satan is the author of crimes against people and the ultimate punisher–in keeping with late medieval Roman Catholic theology and an emerging Protestant embrace of demonology. The introduction of Satan as the instrument of rape also demonstrates an attraction to the abnormal or supernatural forces, and may indicate a suppressed desire to experience similar penetration. At the same time, it is a covert cry that St. Angelo feels that Jessica Ahlquist is attached to the illusionary being that represents the base of evil since rape is generally by someone the victim knows rather than by a stranger.

Eric Rosa has been submerged too far in the cult of the cross, where he suggests that Ahlquist must be “nailed to the cross”. This can be read two ways: (1) that Jessica is the new saviour, although that is not his intent, and/or (2) that Jessica deserves to die (strangely by crucifixion as was the alleged lot of the New Testament Jesus). In both cases, Rosa is fixated with religion and sees any attack on it as an attack upon his personal god (cp. Roberts, Laura Weiss Roberts; Hollifield, Michael; and, McCarty, Teresita (1998). “Psychiatric Evaluation of a “Monk” Requesting Castration: A Patient’s Fable with Morals” American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1998; 155 (3); 415-420).

Taylor Crocker shows classic borderline personality disorder and the desire to destroy to elevate herself as a sage, while recognizing that she is mentally unstable. While Crocker is speaking for herself, she writes that “everyone” will go after Ahlquist as if that was a commonly accepted requirement, emphasizing pathological comorbidity (multiple diagnosis) that is usually associated with opioid addiction where psychiatric symptoms and disorders may be drug-induced, independent, or interrelated. Substance use and addiction can mimic, exacerbate, or precipitate psychiatric personality disorder symptoms leading for calls for violence and homicidal ideation (cf. Robins, E, and Guze, S.B. (1970) “Establishment of diagnostic validity in psychiatric illness: Its application to schizophrenia.” American Journal of Psychiatry. 1970;126:983–6).

Rev. Brandon Smith (RI)

Cranston, a city confounded and cursed with raw hatred has little to brag about as the city has run out of money, the school nearly bankrupt, and with the abhorrent aberration of despicable displays of Christian charity championed in churches, chapels, and among clergy, many of whom have brought dread with the rise of priestly pedophile preying (Jeffrey Thomas, of Massachusetts, and Helen McGonigle, of Connecticut, who have gone on record saying that they were raped as children by the Rev. Brendan Smyth, an Irish priest who had been assigned to Our Lady of Mercy in East Greenwich from 1965 to 1968), the city of 80,000 just south of Providence, has throbbed with raw emotion as if it were aroused erotically—in the same manner as was the sport of those who participated in the religious torture of nonsubscribers and nonbelievers throughout the Roman Catholic world. This is not just the verbal ejaculations and barbed insults hurled at

Peter G. Palumbo

Jessica Ahlquist coming from the twisted mentality of residents, but also barked by the execrable State Representative Peter G. Palumbo, a Democrat from Cranston (16th District), who damned Jessica as “an evil little thing” on a popular talk radio show and publicly shows his contempt for anything that offends his religious views. His denunciation will win him votes for he represents the worse and most bigoted element in his constituency, lacking all respect for the struggle for equality and civil rights in the USA. While Palumbo does represent the bigots and the Roman Catholics in Cranston, he does not represent the ideals of the USA nor the stated platform of the Democratic Party in the USA. He is more in keeping with the Dixiecrats and the numerous hate organizations listed by the SPLC and other groups.

Alexandra Vachon’s Tweets show the greatest instability over the issue of Jessica Ahlquist’s right to express her opinions on matter of religion. She vows violence but retreats under fear of being punished. This is classic schizophrenia and falls into the comorbidity classification since there is obviously a part of her life she keeps hidden (it could be alcoholism, which seems most plausible, or any other drug of choice) as each of her Tweets indicates a joyful celebration over the possible defacement (a “punch” in the mouth, etc.) that shows sadism at its worse. It is no longer “child’s play” or a “teenage tantrum” but rather a blunt statement of intent. Ms. Vachon vouches psychiatric problems for herself and for others, not just Ms. Ahlquist. On the nature and evaluation/elevation of hurtful words, read: Tiecher, Martin H.; Samson, Jacqueline A.; Sheu, Yi-Shin; Polcari, Ann; and McGreenery, Cynthia E. (2010). “Hurtful Words: Association of Exposure to Peer Verbal Abuse with Elevated Psychiatric Symptom Scores and Corpus Callosum Abormalities,” American Journal of Psychiatry, December 2010; 167 (12); 1464-1471; ref. Siever, Larry J. (2008). “Neurobiology of Violence and Aggression.” American Journal of Psychiatry, April; 165 (4); 429-442).

There has been no effort to shore up or defend Ahlquist’s right of descent against enforced religiosity, but there have been concerted efforts to make her life the Christian concept of hell on earth. Three separate florists refused to deliver her roses sent from the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation, a national atheist group. The group, known as the FFRF, filed a complaint with the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights, where it languishes as several clerks fingered their rosaries.

Annie Laurie Gaylor

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the foundation, told reporters, when the news broke that the flowers would not be delivered, stated, “I was amazed.” This led the organization to give the young woman $13,000 from support and scholarship funds, with other people and groups setting up similar funds for Jessica’s future college education. Gaylor noted, “We haven’t seen a case like this in a long time, with this level of revilement and ostracism and stigmatizing.”

Jessica was baptized as a baby in the Roman Catholic Church. She stopped believing in God at age 10 when she learned that prayer was talking to herself and that no god answered prayers. Because of this realization, Jessica saw the prayer was an affront. “It seemed like it was saying, every time I saw it, ‘You don’t belong here,’ ” she said the other night during an interview at a Starbucks in Cranston.

Ahlquist’s action was not hasty. It took time. It required thought. A friend brought the prayer to Jessica’s attention in 2010, when she was a high school freshman. She said nothing at first, but before long someone else — a parent who remained anonymous — filed a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who has as its goal “to defend and preserve individual rights and liberties”. That lawsuit intimidated the school board, as the school system was running low on money given the deteriorating economic conditions in Rhode Island. The Cranston school board began to hold hearings on whether to remove the prayer, and Jessica spoke at all of them. She also started a Facebook page calling for the prayer’s removal (it now has almost 4,000 members) and began researching Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious freedom.

In March 2011, at a rancorous meeting that Judge Ronald Rene Lagueux of United States District Court in Providence, of whom several complaints were launched against him, described in his ruling as resembling “a religious revival,” the school board voted 4-3 to keep the prayer. Some members said it was an important piece of the school’s history; others said it reflected secular values they held dear. Lagueux was nominated a federal judge by Ronald Reagan on January 21, 1986 and was an associate judge on the Rhode Island Supreme Court 1968-1986. He received an LL.B from Harvard Law School in 1956, earning an A.B. in 1953 from Bowdoin College in Maine (he was born in 1931 in Lewiston, Maine). No one explained how a prayer could be secular.

The Rhode Island chapter of the ACLU then asked Jessica if she would serve as a plaintiff in a lawsuit. She agreed. The lawsuit was filed the next month.

Lincoln Chaffee defends "holiday tree" as RI tradition

New England is not the sort of place where battles over the division of church and state tend to crop up. It is the least religious region of the country, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Rhode Island is an exception. Rhode Island is the nation’s most Catholic state, and dust-ups over religion are not infrequent. In December 2011, several hundred people protested at the Statehouse after Gov. Lincoln Chafee (who is among those who want the banner removed), an independent, lighted what he called a “holiday tree” in honor of Roger Williams who founded Rhode Island.

The most evil force, as would be expected, demanding the retention of the prayer banner to save souls is the rank Roman Catholic Church of Rhode

Island. Bee England, a parishioner at St. Charles Borromeo in Providence, and Marie Ferrazzano of St. Mary parish in Cranston wore signs indicating their support for an appeal of the federal judge’s ruling against the prayer banner, and later boasted that only the Vatican should speak on matters of law when the issue was education as all people should be trained to be servants of the Roman Catholic Church. The assistant pastor (the fulltime Pastor is Rev. James. R. Collins) of St. Matthew Parish (it was forced to close its school at the end of 2010 because of diminishing enrollment from 299 to 119, and a fire that cost too much damage to be able to afford to rebuild), 15 Francis Avenue in Cranston, was among those who attended school meetings to show his support to keep the offensive banner on the school wall, commenting in a manner similar to the Dominican Inquisitors of the fifteenth century when faced with rebellion in Spain: “If we go down, we go down with a fight.” This same smugness was reiterated by the Spaniards when the conquered the Inka Empire in the sixteenth century and murdered its king and most of the court. There was no religious tolerance then, nor ever in the Roman Catholic Church’s history.

Roman Catholic Inquisition torture of women

What the people who assembled to denounce the judge’s opinion based on law and the Constitution want is a world matching the fifteenth century where all dissenters were tortured and put to death by garroting, auto-de-fé, Iron Maidens, water-boarding and other devilish devices that John Choon Yoo who worked in the US Department of Justice suggested to George W. Bush (a man that the one-time US Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) called a “better Roman Catholic [sic: Bush is a Methodist] than John F. Kennedy” (read here and here and here) that recounts how Santorum saw himself as a Roman Catholic missionary while in the US Senate, with some claiming that the assassination of JFK was a Vatican-

Waterboarding was common during the Spanish Inquisition (15th-17th centuries)

extracting critical information and had been used by the Roman Catholic Church for more than 1500 years.

The Roman Catholic Church in Rhode Island has the support of the Washington, DC based Becket Foundation for Religious Liberty, a non-profit Roman Catholic interest legal and educational institute that works to protect the freedoms of Roman Catholics and “reasonable” Christians who might convert to Roman Catholicism. The most odious opportunist was Monsignor Richard Sheahan, pastor of Holy Apostles Church in Cranston (read the official Roman Catholic biography), who argued that the ruling further “secularized” society by “attempting to remove God from public view” but never clarified his comment on when god was ever seen in Rhode Island. Clergy comments

The Rhode Island bishop , Thomas J. Tobin, admitted that 125 Rhode Island priests had been accused of molesting children (without any reference to the numerous adults) of both genders, but, following instructions from the Vatican under the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, only allowed 29 of the pedophile priests who admitted to sexually molesting young girls and boys, to be publicly identified (read here and here), claiming that as much as he opposed the ruling, “resorting to personally insulting and even threatening language in such public controversies is totally unacceptable, especially when directed at a young person such as Jessica Ahlquist who has every right to promote her beliefs and express her opinion.”

Bishop Thomas Tobin has a long record of double-talk and negative actions. While protecting pedophile priests, he has denied communion to those who practice contraception or do not adhere rigidly to official Roman Catholic Church dogma and denied Congressman Patrick Kennedy communion because of his pro-choice convictions. As Ruth Moore of Hull, Massachusetts, stated for the record: “He claims that it’s important that we protect the unborn. But it’s equally as important to protect those who have been born and those young children who have been raped and sodomized by clerics and priests. But yet he seems to protect those clerics.” This was echoed by Randi Rhodes who comments regularly, that the bishop’s stand is “Love the fetus, hate the child”. This is especially common among the Roman Catholic clergy in Cranston who say nothing about the death threats directed against Ahlquist by their parishioners but mourn the covering of the prayer banner in a public school. Where Opus Dei is strongest in Rhode Island, Tobin is championed as a “soldier of Christ, armed with shield and sword” to fight against those who would deny “the message of Jesus”. The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts called Tobin’s action an “act of courage, fidelity and charity, intended to prevent scandal and sacrilege.”

1997 Vatican letter requiring hiding child abuse

The Vatican, in 1997, with the knowledge of Pope John Paul II, warned bishops in the USA as it warned Irish bishops not to report sex offendersin the clergy for fear it would lead to defections from the church in a letter that emphasized the church’s right to handle all child-abuse allegations and determine punishments in-house rather than give that power to civil

Archbishop Luciano Storero

authorities; the letter was signed by the late Archbishop Luciano Storero (who wrote the canon on sexual abuse by priests; Benedict XVI continues the cover-up; with child sex rapes by priests and nuns (read here and here), Pope John Paul II’s diplomat to Ireland, the letter instructs Irish bishops that their new policy of making the reporting of suspected crimes mandatory “gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature.” John Paul II’s duplicity in the cover-up has been exceeded only the rank retaliation of Benedict XVI who demands total allegiance to Vatican rule.

It was decreed by the Vatican that it is “far more important” to protect symbols to hold the “church base” together, especially catering to the elderly who could leave their money to further church goals. The plight of children meant nothing until droves of Roman Catholics left the Vatican’s church, and thousands of sexually abused boys and girls (now men and women) have brought lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church in state and provincial courts from Canada and the USA to Ireland and Europe, and as distant as Spain (see video here), Ireland (see the video here), Australia (that has a record of nuns selling babies see video here) and New Zealand (see video here). It is a common practice, worldwide.

Roman Catholics in the public school meeting on the issue of appealing the banner were quick to call on the school to use public funds (which include taxes paid by non-Roman Catholics) to protect the sectarian prayer. The elderly, fearing death and for their souls (read here and here), were among the most outspoken, calling Ahlquist “the devil” and “a whore of evil”—while being noticeably upset when asked if they had ever done something they did not confess to a priest or question as to their sexuality or spirituality. Threats were hurled endlessly, not only at reporters and the Ahlquist family (Jessica in particular), but also at any supporters seeking the removal of the banner.

Many alumni this week said they did not remember the prayer from their high school days but felt an attachment to it nonetheless. According to published

Don Fox and family (Facebook)

reports, Donald Fox, a 1985 graduate of Cranston West, gun enthusiast (“shooting” is his avocation) an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the 47th District in 2010 losing by 196 votes, and endorsed by the Tea Party for a run in 2012 for the Rhode Island legislature, noted: “I am more of a constitutionalist but find myself strangely on the other side of this. The prayer banner espouses nothing more than those values which we all hope for our children, no matter what school they attend or which religious background they hail from.”

Brittney Lanni (Facebook)

Brittany Lanni, who graduated from Cranston West in 2009, said that no one had ever been forced to recite the prayer and, identifying herself as a “daughter of Jesus,” called Jessica “an idiot.” She could not remember what Matthew 5:22 or 7:1 said. Instead, Lanni excused her argument by comparing the prayer banner to economic solvency: “If you don’t believe in that, take all the money out of your pocket, because every dollar bill says, ‘In God We Trust’.” The first time “In God We Trust” appeared on our coins was in 1864 on the new two-cent coin, and by 1909 it was included on most the other coins. The slogan was forced on all of the citizens of the USA during the Age of Fear under Roman Catholic US Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) in 1955 when Red Baiting (anti-communist hysteria that is applauded by the Roman Catholic Church: coming from the anti-democratic Catholic League of the USA) was at its pinnacle (see an apologia pro vita Joe McCarthy by the Jesuit Crosby, Donald F. (1978). God Church, and Flag: Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and the [Roman] Catholic Church, 1950-1957. Chapel Hill, NC, USA: University of North Carolina), when, during the height of the cold war, on July 11, 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Public Law 140 making it mandatory that all coinage and paper currency display the motto, making the slogan the official motto of the USA over the protestations of many.

Raymond Santilli, whose family owns one of the four flower shops that refused to deliver to Jessica, said he declined for safety reasons, knowing the controversy around the case (the flower shop has a gross income of $98,000 a year and employs two people). People from around the world have called to support or attack his decision, which he said he stood by even after being offered police protection. Santilli reasoned that the publicity would chase away steady clients, giving the lie to his claim he was worried about employee safety (video here).

A second bigot is the hate-filled owner of Twins Florist (who has a business located at 1083 Park Avenue with an income of under $500,000 a year) in Cranston owned and operated by Marina Plowman who chortled that discrimination is her right as a form of freedom of speech. Floral Express located at 30 Phenix Avenue in Cranston was the second Cranston, RI, floral shop that employs between one and four people, and has an income under $500,000, refused the order and earmarked the right of the business to openly discriminate dispute US Supreme Court rulings to the contrary.

Lawsuits are being filed against all three Cranston florists for discrimination, defamation of character and other charges infringing upon human and civil rights. Co-owner of Glimpse of Gaia Florist Sean Condon (video here), drove all the way from Connecticut to deliver the flowers, stating that “we don’t discriminate against people for any reason” unlike the rampant discrimination that is found everywhere in Cranston, Rhode Island.

As it is true everywhere, money has greater weight than charity, justice, or kindness. It was the greed and quest for money that led by Pope Clement V in 1307 (a Frenchman born at Villandraut in Gascony in the Bordelais region c. 1260 – died April 20, 1314 at Roquemaure, Provence, and known as a mercenary with a greed for gold) to order that all Knights Templar (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici name; “Poor Fellow-soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon) were to be executed so that he could confiscate more than 9,000 properties as well as countless pastures, mills and other commercial ventures (the trials of the Masters of the Order were shames, reaching the same nadir depths as the inquisitions under John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Many knights abjured their oaths, but the leaders of

Pope orders the torture and assassination of the Knights Templar; depicted is the execution of the Grand Master De Molay and Geoffrey de Chamey who warned against the encroachment of the Vatican

the Order, the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under torture, retracted his forced statement. His close associate Geoffrey de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, followed de Molay’s example and insisted on his innocence. Both men were declared guilty of being relapsed heretics, and were sentenced to burn alive at the stake in Paris on March 18, 1314. De Molay reportedly remained defiant to the end, asking to be tied in such a way that he could face the Notre Dame Cathedral and hold his hands together in prayer. According to legend, he called out from the flames that both Pope Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before God. His actual words were recorded on the parchment as: “Dieu sait qui a tort et a pëché. Il va bientot arriver malheur à ceux qui nous ont condamnés à mort” (free translation: “God knows who is wrong and has sinned. Soon a calamity will occur to those who have condemned us to death”). Pope Clement died only a month later, and King Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year); the pestilential Pope Urban IIcalled for the First of numerous crusades that led to the butchery of Jews, women and infants throughout Europe and the Middle East, forced the conquest and destruction of Constantinople so that it would fall ultimately to the hordes of Muslims, and give reason for Roman Catholic nuns from Ireland to Australia to kidnap and sell babies to the highest bidder. None of this mattered to Santilli, although, thinking of Jessica, he said, “I’ve got a daughter, and I hope my daughter is as strong as she is, O.K.?”

Jessica was not surprised at the contemporary Christian response for it matches the reality of Christianity since its formation and forceful spread under the slogan “convert or die”. Jessica had been used to it since a child. She knew that the Jesus of the New Testament was schizophrenic, according to his numerous biographers who ended up with their various writings declared canon by various church councils. Jesus was portrayed as loving little children (Luke 18:16), and coming to the earth not to bring peace but a sword (Matthew 10:34).

Ahlquist said she had stopped believing in God when she was in elementary school and her mother fell ill for a time. Jessica told reporters: “I had always been told that if you pray, God will always be there when you need him,” she said. “And it didn’t happen for me, and I doubted it had happened for anybody else. So yeah, I think that was just like the last step, and after that I just really didn’t believe any of it.”

Reporters asked Jessica if she empathized in any way with members of her community who want the prayer to stay. Her response was: “I’ve never been asked this before,” then paused, and said: “It’s almost like making a child get a shot even though they don’t want to. It’s for their own [sic: reflexive pronoun is incorrect] good. I feel like they might see it as a very negative thing right now, but I’m defending their Constitution, too.

Jessica’s charity towards her attackers and columnists defied any Christianity in the Cranston community. While Christianity requires charity (1 Corinthians 13:1-10 ff), atheists, it appears especially in the case of Jessica Ahlquist, are naturally charitable, forgiving and understanding–not needing a god to help others or to speak out for equal rights and self-determination.

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